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Lovely toddler skates

I decided to do things a little differently this Easter, my daughter always receives a mountain of Easter eggs so I wanted to do something other than just the normal Easter egg. Instead, I did an Easter egg hunt with a couple of sweet in each egg then in the garden I hid a toy, a prize sort of thing.

The toy in question was these ditsy dots toddler skates from Early Learning Centre. Of course, they are available to buy from ELC stores or online and from Mothercare. I purchased mine from Amazon using vouchers. The full price for these is £10 but I picked mine up on sale for £8 so it might be worth waiting to see if the price drops again.

The toddler skates come inside a nice bright cardboard box and inside there is also an information pamphlet containing information on how to adjust the skates and how to put them on. The skates themselves have a lovely, girly design (there is a blue, space version also available to buy). These are mainly pink in colour with white wheels and a blue strap and stopper on the front. There is a polka dot design just to break the colours up a little. The design is fantastic overall.

These skates are designed to be worn over the top of your child's normal shoes, my daughter wears her trainers when she is using the skates as I think they make the skates fit well and are comfortable for her too, much better than it would be wearing flip flops whilst wearing the skates, for example. The skates have to be adjusted from the bottom, there is a metal spinner that once undone, allows you to pull the skates out longer so the shoes can fit inside. Once the skate is at the right length simply spin the spinner until it is done up again and they skates are ready to go. My daughter finds it easy to get her feet into the skates without me helping but the strap that goes over the top of the shoe is quite tricky for her to do up herself so I help her with this then she can get on and get skating. It sounds like quite a long process to get the skates on but once you've adjusted the length for the first time you don't have to worry about doing it again so it speeds up the whole 'putting on' stage. The skates can be lengthened or shortened between shoe sizes junior 5 and 9 so they do last for quite some time.

My daughter is three and a half and after a few weeks of getting used to the skates, she was whizzing around everywhere. Of course, there was a lot of falling to start with but she thought it was hilarious and would never let me help her back up again so it took her quite a while to get back up onto the skates again. I don't think we have both laughed so much in the past three and a half years! A safety set is definitely something that needs to be worn with the skates. My daughter had a helmet anyway but I made sure I had some elbow and knee pads for her and I'm glad I did as she fell over a lot and had she not been wearing these I think there would have been tears instead of laughter.

Now she's had these for a few months they are quickly becoming the toy she wants to take out with us opposed to her bike or scooter, this is quite pleasing as they are easy to transport being so small. They are handy to have in the car so if we decided to do anything last minute she's got the option of wearing these should she want to. My daughter started off using these on the carpet but can now use these on slightly bobbly terrain without any problems. There is a stopper located on the front of the skates but she hasn't got the hang of these yet.

I highly recommend these skates from Early Learning Centre for some cheap outdoor fun, once they are adjusted to the correct length, putting them on takes seconds, the design is nice and girly and they soon become a much loved toy. Me and my daughter think her skates are hilarious and we've had so much fun when she is wearing them.